TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Hosts Meeting Along With Elon Musk and DOGE

And Elon is here to give you a summary of what’s happening, some of the things they found, some of the horrible things they found, some of the theft and fraud.

And we call it waste and abuse, but a lot of fraud and probably some fraud that we’re not going to be able to prove is fraud. But when you hear the names and the places where this money is going, it’s a disgrace. But we’ve requested that a lot of people we want to make sure that the people are working. So letters were sent out, and I think everyone at this table is very much behind it. And if they aren’t, I’d want them to speak up, but they’re very much behind it.

Letters were sent out to people just to find out if the people exist. Do they work? Who do they work for? Where are they? You know, where have they been working?

Have they been working for other companies or other entities at all or being paid by the government? So they have two jobs, but they’re supposed to have one. And the letter asks some simple questions like, what have you done lately? And if they can answer that because I can. I can tell you everything I’ve done for the last long period of time, a lot more than a week.

And, in many cases, we haven’t gotten responses. Usually, that means that maybe that person doesn’t exist or that person doesn’t want to say they’re working for another company while being paid by the United States government. So there’s a lot of interesting things. It’s very unique, but we have a very unique situation because, we have a lot of people that were scamming our country. We have a lot of dishonest people.

We have a lot of people that took advantage of a lot of different situations, and we’re not going to let that happen. So I’m going to ask if it’s possible to have Elon get up first and talk about DOGE because it seems to be of great interest to everyone.

I will say that there is a large group of people in this country that have such admiration for what we’re doing. I got elected with a tremendous vote, winning every swing state, winning the popular vote, winning the counties by thousands of counties. I think it was two thousand eight hundred to five hundred.

Two thousand eight hundred counties to five hundred counties. Think of that. And so we have a mandate to do this, and this is part of the reason I got elected. I got elected based on taxes and based on many things in the border, but also based on balancing budgets and getting our country back into shape. And this is a big part of it.

So, Elon, if you could get up and explain where you are, how you’re doing and how much of a successful guy is really working so hard. And he’s got businesses to run. And in many ways, I say, how do you do this? And he’s sacrificing a lot and getting a lot of praise, I’ll tell you, but he’s also getting hit. And we would expect that, and that’s the way it works.

So I’d like to have Elon Musk, please say a few words. Thank you, Elon.

Elon Musk on DOGE Initiative

[ELON MUSK:] Thank you, Mr. President. Well, I actually just call myself the Hubbell tech support here because this is actually as crazy as it sounds, that is almost a literal description of the work that the DOGE team is doing, is helping fix the government computer systems.

Many of these systems are extremely old. They don’t communicate. There are a lot of mistakes in the systems. The software doesn’t work. So we are actually tech support.

It’s ironic that it’s true. The overall goal here with the DOGE team is to help address the enormous deficit. We simply cannot sustain as a country two trillion dollars deficits. The interest rates just the interest on the national debt now exceeds the Defense Department spending. We spent a lot on the Defense Department, but we’re spending like over one trillion dollars on interest.

If this continues, the country will go become de facto bankrupt. It’s not an optional thing. It is an essential thing. That’s the reason I’m here and taking a lot of flack and getting a lot of death threats, by the way. I mean, I’d like to stack them up.

But if we don’t do this, America will go bankrupt. That’s why it has to be done. And I’m confident at this point, knock on wood, knock on my wooden head, it’s got a lot of wood up there, that we can actually find one trillion dollars in savings. That would be roughly fifteen percent of the seven trillion dollars budget. And obviously, that can only be done with the support of everyone in this room.

And I’d like to thank everyone for your support. Thank you very much. This can only be done with your support. So this is really DOGE is a support function for the President and for the agencies and departments to help achieve those savings and to effectively find fifteen percent reduction in fraud and waste. And we bring the receipts.

So people say like, well, is this real? Just go to doge.gov. Line item by line item, we specify each item. And I should say, we will also make mistakes. We won’t be perfect.

But when we make a mistake, we’ll fix it very quickly. So for example, with USAID, one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola prevention. I think we all want Ebola prevention. So we restored the Ebola prevention immediately, and there was no interruption. But we do need to move quickly if we are to achieve a trillion dollar deficit reduction in financial year twenty-twenty-six.

It requires saving four billion dollars per day every day from now through the end of September. But we can do it, and we will do it. Thank you.

Questions from Reporters

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Would you have any questions of Elon while we’re on the subject of that, because we’ll finish off with that. And if you would have any questions, please ask. You could ask me or Elon. Go ahead, please.

[REPORTER:] Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. Musk. I just wanted to ask you that President Trump put out a Truth Social today saying that everybody in the cabinet was happy with you. I just wondered if that’s if you had heard otherwise. If so, what are you doing to address any dissatisfaction?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] I have a lot of respect for Elon and that he’s doing this. And some disagree a little bit, but I will tell you for the most part, I think everyone is not only happy, they’re thrilled. So go ahead.

[ELON MUSK:] I’m grateful. Literally. And I do not give false praise. This is an incredible group of people. I don’t think that such a talented team has actually ever been assembled. I think it’s literally the best cabinet that the country has ever had, and I think the country should be incredibly appreciative of the people in this room.

[REPORTER:] Mr. President, thank you, Mr. Musk. Are there about half of the government employees so far appear to have responded to your request for what they’ve been doing over the past week. Is there a timeline in place for next moves for people being fired? And when can the American people expect to see results of that?

[ELON MUSK:] Yes. Well, to be clear, the email perhaps was best interpreted as a performance review, but actually, it was a pulse check review. Do you have a pulse? Do you have a pulse and two neurons? So if you have a pulse and two neurons, you can reply to an email.

This is, I think, not a high bar is what I’m saying. This should be something anyone could accomplish. But what we are trying to get to the bottom of is we think there are a number of people on the government payroll who are dead, which is probably why they can’t respond. And some people who are not real people, like they’re literally fictional individuals that are collecting paychecks. Well, somebody is collecting paychecks on a fictional individual.

So we’re literally trying to figure out, are these people real? Are they alive? And can they write an email? Which I think is a reasonable expectation the American public would have at least that expectation of someone in the public sector.

Trump Cabinet Meeting: Federal Workforce Evaluation

REPORTER: Mussermatt, roughly one million employees have responded so far to this email. Does that mean that the remaining one million or so federal employees now risk being terminated? And is it your understanding and expectation when you post a directive on X that the cabinet secretaries will follow that order because several agencies have instructed employees that this is voluntary or not to respond?

ELON MUSK: Well, I mean, last week, the President encouraged me via social media and also via phone call to be more aggressive. And I was like, “Okay. Yes, sir. Mr. President, we’ll indeed do that.”

The President asked if we could send out an email to everyone just saying “what did you get done last week?” And the president said yes, so we did that. We got a partial response. We’re going to send another email.

But our goal is not to be capricious or unfair. We want to give people every opportunity to send an email. And the email could simply be “what I’m working on is too sensitive or classified to describe.” Literally just that would be sufficient. I think this is just common sense.

REPORTER: And what is your target number for how many workers, employees you’re looking to cut total?

ELON MUSK: We wish to keep everyone who is doing a job that is essential and doing that job well. But if the job is not essential or they’re not doing the job well, they obviously should not be on the public payroll.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I’d like to add that those million people that haven’t responded though, Elon, they are on the bubble. I wouldn’t say that we’re thrilled about it. They haven’t responded. Now maybe they don’t exist. Maybe we’re paying people that don’t exist. Don’t forget. We just got here. This group just got here.

But those people are on the bubble as they say. Maybe they’re going to be gone. Maybe they’re not around. Maybe they have other jobs. Maybe they moved, and they’re not where they’re supposed to be.

A lot of things could have happened. I wouldn’t say that Biden ran a very tight administration. They spent money like nobody’s ever spent money before, wasted money. The green new scam, all of the different things they spent money on. And you’ve seen that.

We’ve seen that with some of the things that I read in speeches. I read them and people can’t believe when I read them. Twenty million here, thirty million here for a little educational cost on something like circumcision. Twenty million dollars to inform the people of such and such a country on other things.

So, yeah, those people are right now, we’re trying to find out who those people are that haven’t responded. Now there’ll be some agencies, like Marco has people within State that are right now doing very classified, very confidential work, and we understand that. We’ve talked and we’re being a little more surgical. And Marco is doing a lot of things himself.

Some of the secretaries are—we’re going to be going to them. We’re going to be talking about it today. We’re going to ask them to do their own reviews. In other words, they’ll look in their group. I spoke with Lee Zeldin, and he thinks he’s going to be cutting sixty-five or so percent of the people from environmental, and we’re going to speed up the process too at the same time.

We had a lot of people that weren’t doing their job. They were just obstructionists and a lot of people that didn’t exist, I guess. We found a lot of empty spots. The people weren’t there. They didn’t exist.

Education Reform Plans

And, I think education is going to be one of those. You go around Washington, you see all these buildings in the Department of Education. We want to move education back to the states where it belongs. Iowa should have education. Indiana should run their own education.

You’re going to see education go way up. Right now, we’re ranked at the very bottom of the list, but we’re at the top of the list in one thing, the cost per people. We spend more money per pupil than any other country in the world. And yet it’s Denmark and Norway, Sweden, and I hate to say this, and you know, we’re going to get along very well with China, but it’s a competitor. They’re at the top of the list. They’re among the top ten usually, and they’re a very big country. So we can use that as an excuse. Right?

Because we’re a very big country too. But we were ranked last time under Biden. We’re ranked forty out of forty. They do the forty certain nations that they’ve done for a long time. It seems to be forty for whatever reason.

And we’re ranked number forty. A year ago, we were thirty-eight, then we were thirty-nine. We hit forty. And, so we’re last in that, and we’re first in cost per pupil. So I would say that’s unacceptable.

REPORTER: Lawrence, you have something to the president, know you like competition, and I know it’s early. So which department are you most impressed with? And then to Mr. Brooks, which department have you received the most resistance from?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Mr. Brooks, I think both of those questions are a little bit—well, you’re a pretty controversial guy. Look, it’s very early. Right now, I think I’m impressed with everybody. So far, everybody. If I wasn’t in the first month with—and some of them just got here. They just got approved two days ago, right?

But I think I’m very impressed with everybody. So far, I’m very happy with all of the choices. I think that Elon has done incredibly with some groups, and some groups are much easier than others. It is true. State is a very difficult situation. We’re right now negotiating very successfully, I think, with Russia and with Ukraine, and we have a lot of countries involved, and we have to be a little bit careful what we do and who we’re terminating. But, Marco is doing that very—I think he’s going to be very precise.

We’re cutting down government. We’re cutting down the size of government. We have to. We’re bloated. We’re sloppy. We have a lot of people that aren’t doing their job. We have a lot of people that don’t exist. You look at Social Security as an example. I mean, you have so many people in Social Security where, if you believe it, they’re two hundred years old. And what we’re doing is finding out, are checks going out for that?

And if somebody cashes in those checks, who’s maybe thirty-five years old. Okay? So there’s a lot of dishonesty. There’s a lot of fraud. But I think at this moment, I’ll take Elon off the spot.

I think that he’s impressed. He said it very well. Better than I can say it, that he’s impressed with the people in this room. Very impressed. And I am too.

And, it’s too early to say, but I think everybody’s on board. They all know. We want to balance a budget. We want to have a balanced budget within a reasonably short period of time, meaning maybe by next year or the year after, but maybe maybe even sooner than that.

Border Security Updates

REPORTER: Mr. President, your number one issue was the border. We just got new information that there are federal agents—they’re putting their personal information out there, these activists, and they’re disrupting operations. So you got Trinidad and others running all over activists. That’s true. So what are we going to do about the activists?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: A lot of those activists are acting illegally, and we’ll give that to our attorney general, and she’ll take a look at that very strongly. But we’re also having tremendous support from border patrol, from ICE. The ICE agents have been unbelievable. Border patrol, their leadership at border patrol has been incredible, and they’re working very well.

And as you know, and I saw you reporting it this morning, actually, we set records on the least number of illegal aliens coming in, migrants coming into our country that we’ve had in more than fifty years. And we did this all within a period of weeks because we took over a mess. The world was pouring in.

And remember, they were coming in from jails and prisons and mental institutions and insane asylums, and there were gang members and drug dealers. Anybody wanted to come in. They came in from not just South America, from all over the world.

So it’s amazing what they’ve done. And, Christine and Tom Holman, the job they’ve done has been absolutely amazing. We set records for, and we want people to come into our country, by the way, but they want to come in. They have to come in legally. I want that to be really understood. We want people in our country, but they have to come in legally.

Trump Gold Card Immigration Program

REPORTER: Can I follow-up, Mr. President, about the Trump gold card idea that you unveiled yesterday? I await more information, but the question is, does this reflect a view on your part that the American immigration system has never been properly monetized as you feel it should be?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, not so much monetized. It hasn’t been properly run. I get calls from Harvard, the Wharton School of Finance. They go to Yale. They go to all great schools, and they graduate number one in their class. And they get job offers, but the offer is immediately rescinded because you have no idea whether or not that person can stay in the country.

I want to be able to have that person stay in the country. These companies can go and buy a gold card, and they can use it as a matter of recruitment. At the same time, the company is using that money to pay down debt. We’re going to pay down a lot of debt with that. And I think the gold card is going to be used not only for that, I mean, they’ll be used by companies.

I could see Apple. I’ve spoken with Tim Cook. And by the way, he’s going to make a five hundred billion dollar investment in the country only because of the results of the election. And I think because of tariffs, he’s going to want to be in the country because of tariffs. Because if you’re in the country, there is no tariff. If you’re out of the country, you gotta pay tariffs. And, that’s going to be a great investment, I think, that he’s making. I know it’s going to be a great investment.

But, we have to be able to get people in the country, and we want people that are productive people. And I will tell you, the people that can pay five million, they’re going to create jobs. They’re going to spend a lot of money on jobs. They’re going to have to pay taxes on that too. So they’re going to be hiring people. They’re going to be bringing people in and companies in. And I don’t know. Maybe it will sell like crazy. I happen to think it’s going to sell like crazy. It’s a bargain.

Howard, if you want to discuss that for a couple of minutes, I think I’d like to have you. I think it’s going to be a very successful program.

HOWARD: So the EB-five program, which has been around for many years, had and then you came into the country and ended up with a green card. So it was poorly overseen, poorly executed. Then you had a border open where millions of people came through.

So the idea is we will have a proper business. We will modify the EB-five agreement. Christy and I are working on it together. For five million dollars, they’ll get a license from the Department of Commerce, then they’ll make a proper investment on the EB five. Right?

And I think Scott and I will design the EB five investment model because Scott and I are the best people together to do that. So this is joint—this is exactly the Trump administration. We all work together. We work it out to be the best.

And if we sell, just remember, two hundred thousand. There’s a line of eighty-five of two hundred and fifty thousand right now. Two hundred thousand of these gold green cards is one trillion dollars to pay down our debt. And that’s why the president is doing it because we are going to balance his budget, and we are going to pay off the debt under President Trump.

REPORTER: And to qualify, do you have to promise and make commitments to create a certain number of jobs here in the US? Because not all these people are going to be job builders.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: There’ll be successful people or there’ll be people that were hired from colleges, like, sort of like paying an athlete a bonus. I mean, Apple or one of the companies will go and they’ll spend five—they’ll buy five of them, and they’re going to get five people.

Look. I’ve had the complaint from a lot of companies where they go out to hire people, they can’t hire them out of colleges. And you know what they do? They go back to India or they go back to the country where they came, and they open up a company, and they become billionaires. And they’re employing thousands and there are a lot of examples. There are some really big examples where they were forced out of the country. They graduated top in their class at a great school, and they weren’t able to stay. This is all the time you hear it.

And the biggest complaint I get from companies other than overregulation, which we took care of, but we’re going to have to take care of it here because a lot of that was put back on by Biden. But the biggest complaint is the fact that they can’t have any longevity with people. This way, they have pretty much unlimited longevity. Also, with the five million, you know, that’s a path to citizenship. So that’s going to be—it’s sort of a green card plus, and it’s a path to citizenship.

Trump’s Gold Card Immigration Plan

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] We’re going to call it the gold card, and I think it’s going to be very treasured. I think it’s going to do very well. And we’re going to start selling in about two weeks. Now just so you understand, if we sell a million, right, a million, that’s five trillion dollars. Five trillion dollars. Howard was using a different number, but that’s five trillion dollars. If we sell ten million, which is possible, ten million highly productive people coming in or people that we’re going to make productive, they’ll be young, but they’re talented, like a talented athlete. That’s fifty trillion dollars.

That means our debt is totally paid off, and we have fifteen trillion dollars above that. And I don’t know that we’re going to sell that many. Maybe we won’t sell many at all, but I think we’re going to sell a lot because there’s no other country that can do this because people don’t want to go to other countries. They want to come here. Everybody wants to come here, especially since November fifth.

[UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:] The president, I’ll give some brief remarks.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Exactly. By the way, all these people will be vetted. Okay? To be vetted.

Ukraine Security and Resources

[REPORTER:] Ukraine, can you talk a little bit about what type of security guarantees you’re willing to make?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Well, I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond very much. We’re going to have Europe do that because we’re talking about Europe is the next door neighbor. But we’re going to make sure everything goes well.

And as you know, we’ll be partnering with Ukraine in terms of rare earth. We very much need rare earth. They have great rare earth. We’ll be working with Secretary Bergam and with Chris. You’ll be working on that together.

And we’re going to be able to have tremendous resources because we don’t have that much of it here. We have some, but we don’t have that much, and we need a lot more to really propel us to the next level to lead in every way. We’re leading right now with AI. We’re leading with everything right now, but we need resources. We have to double our electric capacity. We have to do many things. We have to really triple, if you think of it, the electric capacity from what we have right now, if you can believe it.

So I can say this. The deal we’re making gets us great wealth. We get back the money that we spent, and we hope that we’re going to be able to settle this up. We want to settle it. We want to stop.

I tell you what, I’m doing it for two reasons. But the number one reason by far is to watch all these people being killed. I see pictures every week. I assume satellite pictures mostly, but there’s some pictures on-site of thousands of soldiers that are being killed. They’re being decimated because equipment today, military equipment, is so powerful and so devastating. And number one, I want to see people stop. And they’re not from here. They’re from primarily two other countries.

Middle East Peace Efforts

And then, by the way, let’s talk about the Middle East. We gotta solve that problem too. And that’s come a long way. We’re doing very well in that also. A lot of things are happening on that.

But I’m watching soldiers being killed, Ukrainian and Russian soldiers being killed. My number one thing is to get that stopped. My number two thing is I don’t want to have to pay any more money because Biden has spent three hundred and fifty billion dollars without any chance of getting it back. Now we’re going to be getting all of that money back plus a lot more, and we provided a great thing. I mean, we provided something very important.

And we’ll be working with Ukraine because we’ll be taking what we’re entitled to take. Now they spent three hundred and fifty billion dollars, and Europe spent one hundred billion dollars. Now does anybody really think that’s fair? But then we find out a little while ago, not so long ago, a few months ago, I found out that the money they spent, they get back. But the money we spent, we don’t get back.

I said, well, we’re going to get it back, and we’ll be able to make a deal. And, again, President Zelenskyy is coming to sign the deal. And it’s a great thing. It’s a great deal for Ukraine too because they get us over there, and we’re going to be working over there. We’ll be on the land.

And, you know, in that way, there’s sort of automatic security because nobody’s going to be messing around with our people when we’re there. And so we’ll be there in that way. But Europe will be watching it very closely. I know that UK has said and France has said that they want to put so-called peacekeepers on the site, and I think that’s a good thing.

Economic Confidence

[REPORTER:] Mister President, you mentioned the high cost of eggs, and we’ve seen consumer confidence this week have a sharp drop from last month, the biggest dip in, I believe, three years. Why is that your assessment, why is that the case? And is there anything—

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Consumer confidence. If you look at confidence in the nation, it had the biggest increase in the history of the chart. It went up forty-two points in a period of, like, days after the election. So since the election, confidence in our nation, including right track, wrong track, the first time it’s ever happened where we were on the right track because this country has been on the wrong track for a long time.

So, the confidence in business, confidence in the country has reached an all-time high. We have never reached levels like we are right now.

Foreign Policy Positions

[REPORTER:] Mister president, you’ve been very clear in saying that as long as you’re president, Iran will never get a nuclear weapon.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] That’s true.

[REPORTER:] Is it also your policy that as long as you’re president, China will never take Taiwan by force?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] I never comment on that. I don’t comment on anything because I don’t want to ever put myself in that position. And if I said it, I certainly wouldn’t be saying it to you. I’d be saying it to other people, maybe people around this table and very specific people around this table.

So I don’t want to put myself in that position. I can tell you what, I have a great relationship with President Xi. I’ve had a great relationship with him. We want them to come in and invest. I see so many things saying that we don’t want China in this country. That’s not right. We want them to invest in the United States. That’s good. There’s a lot of money coming in, and we’ll invest in China. We’ll do things with China.

The relationship we’ll have with China would be a very good one. I see all of these phony reports that we don’t want that money. That’s wrong. We’re going to have a good relationship with China, but they won’t be able to take advantage of us. What they did to Biden was he didn’t know what was happening. He didn’t know what he was doing. The administration didn’t know what they were doing. It was very sad to watch, but we’re going to have a good relationship with China and Russia and Ukraine and the Middle East.

We’re doing things that look—when I left, we had no wars. We had defeated ISIS totally. We had no inflation. We didn’t have the Afghanistan withdrawal, the worst withdrawal anybody’s ever seen. I think that’s one of the reasons that President Putin looked at that. He said, “Wow. These guys are a paper tiger.”

Look, we’re no paper tiger. Don’t forget. We got rid of ISIS in three weeks. People said it would take five years. We did it because when I came in, I let them do what they had to do. And the man that headed that operation is now going to be your chairman. Right?

[PETE HEGSETH:] Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Yes, sir.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] And Raisin Kane. I liked him right from the beginning. As soon as I heard his name, I said that’s my guy.

Border and Tariff Policy

[REPORTER:] Any other questions? Decreases in crossings at the border for you to continue the pause on tariffs against Mexico and Canada? And if not—

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] I’m not stopping the tariffs. No. Millions of people have died because of the fentanyl that comes over the border.

[REPORTER:] The ninety percent drop in border crossings, though, this last month compared to about a year ago?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Yeah. They’ve been good, but that’s also due to us, mostly due to us. I mean, it’s very hard. It’s right now very hard to come through the border. But the damage has been done. We’ve lost millions of people due to fentanyl. It comes mostly from China, but it comes through Mexico and it comes through Canada.

And I have to tell you that, you know, on April second, I was going to do it on April first, but I’m a little bit superstitious. I made it April second. The tariffs go on, not all of them, but a lot of them. And I think you’re going to see something that’s going to be amazing.

We’ve been taken advantage of as a country for a long period of time. We’ve been tariffed, but we didn’t tariff. Now I did when I was here. We took in seven hundred billion from China. Seven hundred billion. Not one president in the history of our country took in ten cents from China. At the same time, China respected us. Now when COVID came in, that was a different deal. I used to call it the China virus. I guess I can call it the China virus again, but it was an accurate term, but I won’t do that out of respect to China.

Gaza Situation

[REPORTER:] Sanctions? On Gaza, I just wondered if there’s any progress towards the second phase of the ceasefire?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] I’m very disappointed when I see four bodies came in today. These are young people. Young people don’t die. Okay? Young people don’t die. These are young people. Four bodies came in today. They think they’re doing us a favor by sending us bodies.

So, look, that’s a decision that has to be made by Israel, by Bibi, but Israel has to make that decision. We got a lot of hostages back, but it’s very sad what happened to those people. I mean, you had a young lady with her hand practically blown off. You know why it blew up? Because she put up her hand to try and stop a bullet that was coming her way, and it hit her hand and blew off her fingers, big part of her hand. This is a vicious group of people, and Israel’s going to have to decide what they’re doing.

Phase one is going to be ending. Think of it. Today, they sent in four bodies. Bodies. And I will say one thing. I’ve spoken to a lot of the parents and a lot of the people involved. They want those bodies almost as much and maybe even just as much as they wanted their son or their daughter. Amazing. “Please, sir. Please, my son is dead, but they have his body. Please, can you get it for us?” It’s the biggest thing. It’s incredible. The level they want the bodies of these people, they’re dead. They’re dead.

And, you know, when I saw the ones that came in two weeks ago, they looked like they just got out of a concentration camp. Then the following week, a group came in, and they weren’t in as bad a shape. But Israel’s going to have to make a decision. You’re right. Phase one and now phase two has started. And today, we got some very, very—we knew they were dead, by the way. We knew that they were going to be bodies as opposed to people that were living, but it’s a very sad situation. At some point, somebody’s going to say, “Hey. We gotta do something about this.”

Afghanistan Withdrawal Accountability

[REPORTER:] Mister president, you talked about Afghanistan and the botched withdrawal. Have all the generals or command staff that were involved with the withdrawal been fired or relieved of duty?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Well, that’s a great idea. It’s a great question. I’m not going to tell this man what to do, but I will say that if I were in his place, I’d fire every single one of them.

[PETE HEGSETH:] Well, it’s a question we thought a lot about. We’re doing a complete review of every single aspect of what happened with the botched withdrawal of Afghanistan. Plan to have full accountability. It’s one of the first things we announced at the Defense Department for that reason, sir. Certainly, General Raisin Kane, who’s on his way in, was not a part of that. Instead, he was a part of leading the effort against ISIS by untying the hands of war fighters and finishing the job properly and then bringing our troops home.

So we’re taking a very different view, obviously, than the previous administration, and there will be full accountability.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] I don’t see big promotions in that group. And I think they’re going to be largely gone. I know the man on my left. I think they’re going to be largely gone. That was a horrible display. And I’ve dealt with the parents and the family of the thirteen that were killed. But nobody ever talks about the forty that were so badly hurt with the arms and the legs and the face and the whole thing, the missing arms and legs. It was so terrible the way that was handled.

And it should have been gone through Bagram. We have a big base with big fences that nobody can get in and you have hundreds of acres instead of a little local airport where the whole place went crazy. That was so badly handled, and I would think that most of those people are going to be gone.

[UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:] Are we going to take Ivan back?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] So I’ll tell you what has bothered me very much, very, very much. We give billions of dollars to Afghanistan.

Trump Discusses Afghanistan Withdrawal and Equipment Left Behind

Nobody knows that. Nobody knew that. You know we give billions of dollars to Afghanistan, and yet we left behind all of that equipment, which wouldn’t have happened. You know, we were getting out under me. I’m the one that got it down to five thousand people.

We’re going to get out, but we’re going to keep Bagram, not because of Afghanistan, but because of China, because it’s exactly one hour away from where China makes its nuclear missiles. So we were going to keep Bagram. We’re going to keep a small force on Bagram. We’re going to have Bagram Air Base, one of the biggest air bases in the world, one of the biggest runways, one of the most powerful runways in the sense that it was very heavy concrete and steel. You could carry about anything.

You could land anything on those runways. We gave it up. And you know who’s occupying it right now? China. China.

Biden gave it up. So we’re going to keep that, and we’re going to have a withdrawal, and we’re going to take our equipment. We’re going to do it properly. We’re going to keep the equipment. Well, they ran out.

It was what happened there was a disaster. In fact, you know, in all fairness to Putin, when he saw that, he said, well, this is our time to go and go into Ukraine, I guess, because the timing seemed to be about right. But we send them billions of dollars in aid, which nobody knows. If the American public knew that, they know it now. And if we’re doing that, I think they should give our equipment back. And I told Pete to study that, but we left millions, tens of billions of dollars worth of equipment behind, brand new trucks.

You see them display it every year on their little roadway some place where they have a road, and they drive them, waving the flag and talking about America. Beautiful equipment. It’s all the top of the line stuff, brand new stuff. Now it’s getting older. But you know what? We’re going to pay them. I think we should get a lot of that equipment back.

You know that Afghanistan is one of the biggest sellers of military equipment in the world. You know what? They’re selling the equipment that we left.

We’re first. They were second or third. Can you believe it? They’re selling seven hundred and seventy-seven thousand rifles, seventy thousand armor plated trucks and vehicles. Many of them were armor plated. Seventy thousand. If you think of a used car lot, the biggest one.

Social Security and Medicare Protections

REPORTER: Last night aims to cut two trillion dollars. Right. Can you guarantee that Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security will not be touched?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah. I mean, I have said it so many times. You shouldn’t be asking me that question. Okay? This will not be “read my lips.” It won’t be “read my lips” anymore. We’re not going to touch it.

Now we are going to look for fraud. I’m sure you’re okay with that, like people that shouldn’t be on, people that are illegal aliens and others, criminals in many cases, and that’s with Social Security. We have a lot of people. You see that immediately when you see people that are two hundred years old that are being sent checks with Social Security.

Some of them are actually being sent checks. So we’re tracing that down, and I have a feeling that Pam is going to do a very good job with that. But you have a lot of fraud. But, no, we’re not doing anything on this.

Executive Authority

REPORTER: Mister President, part of your mission sir, part of your mission has been to restore executive control over the executive branch. Is it your view of your authority that you have the power to call up any one of or all of the people seated at this table and issue orders that they’re bound to follow?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Oh, yeah. They’ll follow the orders. Yes.

REPORTER: No exceptions?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No exceptions. Well, let’s see. Let me think. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She’ll have an exception. Of course, no exceptions. You know that.

Tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and Fentanyl Crisis

REPORTER: Mister President, can you clarify the Canada Mexico tariffs? You had put that thirty day pause, but you just referred to April five percent, twenty-five percent. When does it go into effect?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: April second. April second for Canada, Mexico. And for everything. Well, we have the fentanyl related as a pause. If they can prove to the president they’ve done an excellent job, that’s what they first do in thirty days. And the overall is April second. So the big transaction is April second, but the fentanyl related things, they’re working hard on the border. At the end of that thirty days, they have to prove to the president that they’ve satisfied him to that regard if they have.

It’s going to be hard. We lose three hundred thousand people a year to fentanyl. Not a hundred, not ninety-five, not sixty like you read. You know, you’ve been reading it for years. We lost, in my opinion, over the last couple of years, on average, maybe close to three hundred thousand people dead. And the families are ruined.

You know? When they lose a daughter, when they lose a son, the families are never the same. They’re never going to be the same. So you’re talking about a million people. But when the daughters die, I see it. Daughters die and the sons die because of fentanyl. And in some cases, they don’t even know they’re taking it. They’re buying something else, and it’s laced with fentanyl, and they end up dying.

I’ve known many people who’ve lost children to fentanyl and for other reasons, but to fentanyl, it’s such a big killer. And those people are never the same people. I mean, I’ve seen people that, for the rest of their lives, they’re not the same people. They’re so different. Dynamic people, happy people that die a miserable death. And that’s because of the crap that comes in through China and through Mexico and through Canada. It comes a lot of it comes through Canada.

Canada Trade Relations

The Canada look. We support Canada. Two hundred billion dollars a year in subsidies one way or the other. We let them make millions of cars. We let them send us lumber. We don’t need their lumber. We’re going to free up our lumber. Lee’s going to do that, head of environmental. We’re going to free up our lumber. We have the best lumber there is. We don’t need their lumber.

What do we need their lumber for? When you look at it, we subsidize them two hundred billion dollars a year. Without us, Canada can’t make it. You know, Canada relies on us ninety-five percent. We rely on them four percent. Big difference. And, I say Canada should be our fifty-first state.

There’s no tariffs, no nothing. And I say that we give them military protection. They have a very small military. They spend very little money on military. On NATO, they’re just about last in terms of payment because they say, why should we spend on military? That’s a tremendous cost. Most nations can’t afford to even think about it. Why should we spend on military? The United States protects us. And I would say that’s largely true.

We protect Canada, but it’s not fair. It’s not fair that they’re not paying their way. And if they had to pay their way, they couldn’t exist.

When I spoke to, let’s call it the prime minister rather than the governor. But when I spoke to him, I said, why are we giving you two hundred billion dollars a year? He was unable to answer the question. I said, why are we letting you make millions of cars and send them in? He was unable to answer the question.

Justin Trudeau. Nice guy. I think he’s a very good guy. I call him governor Trudeau. He should be governor because the fact is that if we don’t give them cars, we don’t have to give them cars. The tariffs will make it impossible for them to sell cars into the United States. The tariffs will make it impossible for them to sell lumber or anything else into the United States.

And all I’m asking to do is break even or lose a little bit, but not lose two hundred billion dollars, and we love Canada. I love Canada. I love the people of Canada. But, honestly, it’s not fair for us to be supporting Canada. And if we don’t support them, they don’t subsist as a nation. Okay?

European Union Tariffs

REPORTER: President, have you just made a decision on what level you will speak on tariffs in the European Union?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have made a decision. We’ll be announcing it very soon, and it’ll be twenty-five percent, generally speaking, and that’ll be on cars and all other things. And European Union is a different case than Canada, different kind of case. They’ve really taken advantage of us in a different way. They don’t accept our cars. They don’t accept essentially our farm products.

They use all sorts of reasons why not, and we accept everything of them. And we have about a three hundred billion dollar deficit with the European Union. Now I love the countries of Europe. I guess I’m from there at some point a long time ago. Right? But indirectly pretty directly too, I guess. But I love the countries of Europe. I love all countries, frankly. They’re all different, but the European Union’s been formed in order to screw the United States. I mean, look.

Let’s be honest. The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States. That’s the purpose of it. And they’ve done a good job of it, but now I’m president.

REPORTER: What will happen if these countries where the EU retaliate?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They can’t. I mean, they can try, but they can’t.

REPORTER: China did. They are alleging to, sir. That are went into effect China’s retaliation of tariffs on the tenth of February. Has there been any impact that you’ve been able to observe?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That’s right. No. They can do it, and they can try, but the numbers can never equal what ours because we can go off. We are the pot of gold. We’re the one that everybody wants. And they can retaliate, but it cannot be a successful retaliation because we just go cold turkey. We don’t buy anymore. And if that happens, we win.

Other Topics

REPORTER: Are you talking to Eric Prince about private case privatizing deportations?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No. I haven’t. I haven’t.

REPORTER: So, Justin, you’re in litigation with CBS News. Is this a case that you’d like to see go to trial, or are you open to some settlement?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: CBS? Yes. CBS did something that was amazing. Kamala was unable to answer a question properly, and they took the question that they asked, and they inserted an answer. They gave her an answer.

This was two days before the election, right before the Sunday night before the election. And they wrote out a they put her words from another question that was asked about half an hour later, and they put that into the question. Nobody’s ever even heard of it before. Nobody’s ever heard of anything like this before, but they then did it, they say, on numerous occasions. And the FCC is looking at it very strongly, and everybody’s looking at it.

But nobody’s ever seen it. They think of it. They took her answers, and they changed them. And I don’t mean they changed a word or two or they cut off a half a sentence or cut off a couple of words. I mean, I’ve had that happen too, but that is just saying, you know, then they say, well, we want remedy. You know, we wanted them to do it for time. They took out her answer, and they inserted an entirely different answer that made her sound confident. And they did this, and nobody’s ever heard of it. I thought I’ve heard of everything when it comes to that stuff. No. I’ve never heard of it.

Nobody’s ever seen. So we sued, and we are in discussions of settlement.

REPORTER: What would the number be like, what’s the number that you would think would be appropriate?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think it’s a lot. It probably did affect the election. I mean, we won by a lot. As I said, too big to rig, but it probably did affect the election. Yeah. Probably could’ve won by more, but I could’ve lost the election because of that.

Election Integrity

It’s we have to we have to get to honest elections. We have to go back to paper ballots. We have to go back to voter ID. One day election, ideally, or short term, not these forty-eight day and sixty-one day elections where boxes are put in a room and, oh, let’s move the box because we’re putting in a new air conditioning system. And you see the boxes move, and then you say, well, where are all the boxes? You know? What happened to the boxes that never came back?

Now our elections are extremely dishonest. We’re the only country in the world that has mail-in voting and all of these different things that we put in. Nobody no other country in the world has it.

You know, France went to, they had some of the things that we had, and they went to same day voting, all paper. And, you know, paper is very sophisticated now. It’s a very sophisticated, it’s a very sophisticated form of voting right now. It’s a very safe form of voting. You know, the other things for the governors, I wish the governors would do it because the paper ballots will cost nine percent of the machines, and they’re a hundred percent. You know, they’re nothing’s foolproof, but they’re as close as you get.

So we’ll see what happens. But on the sixty minute thing, nobody’s ever seen anything like it.

REPORTER: And would you link the FCC action to the litigation? I mean, does it make sense?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don’t think it’s linked, but probably the lawyers look at it, you know, because I know it’s going along.

Trump’s Assessment of FCC and Putin

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] FCC is headed by a very competent person, and you have some very competent people on the board. And so I think they’re looking at it very seriously.

[REPORTER:] Around the deals that you’ve done in your life, all the people you’ve sat across from and negotiated with, is President Putin distinct in any way?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] He’s a very smart guy. He’s a very cunning person, but I’ve dealt with some people—I’ve dealt with some really bad people. But I will tell you, as far as this is concerned, we have to understand, he had no intention, in my opinion, of settling this war. I think he wanted the whole thing.

When I got elected, we spoke, and I think we’re going to have a deal. I can’t guarantee that. You know, a deal is a deal. Lots of crazy things happen in deals. Right? But I think we’re going to have a deal.

If I didn’t get elected, I believe he would have just continued to go through Ukraine over a period of time. A lot of people would have been killed, would have lasted for a period of time. And the reason that Ukraine—and I give great respect for Ukraine as fighters, great fighters—but without our equipment, that war would have been over like people said in a very short period of time.

If you remember, I gave the Javelins, and the Javelins are the things that knocked out those tanks right at the beginning of the war. They said that Obama, at the time, gave sheets, and Trump gave Javelins. Well, I was the one that did that, but I want to see it come to an end.

[REPORTER:] Will he have to make concessions, President Putin?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Yeah. He will. He will. He’s going to have to. And I think I believe that because we got elected, that war will come to an end. And I also believe if we didn’t get elected, if this administration didn’t win the election by a lot, that war would go on for a long time, and he would want to take the whole thing.

On Ukraine and NATO

[REPORTER:] What’s the question?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Big question I had is does he want to take the whole thing? But the Ukrainians are good fighters, I have to say, but without the equipment—without our equipment, we have the best equipment in the world. We have the best military equipment in the world. Without our equipment, that would have been over very quickly.

[REPORTER:] What concessions would you like to see?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] I don’t want to tell you right now, but I can tell you that NATO, you can forget about. That’s been—I think that’s probably the reason the whole thing started. And I think, JD, we can say that. Do you have a statement on that?

[JD VANCE:] You’ve been very much involved. I gave him the beauty. We’re not going to do the negotiation in public with the American media. He’s going to do it in private with the president of Russia, with the president of Ukraine, and with other leaders. And I think that’s how this has to go.

I just want to push back against some of the criticism I’ve seen in the administration on this because every single time the president engages in diplomacy, you guys preemptively accuse him of conceding to Russia. He hasn’t conceded anything to anyone. He’s doing the job of a diplomat, and he is, of course, the diplomat in chief as the president of the United States.

Gold Card Immigration Program

[REPORTER:] On the gold card, sir, can you talk a little bit more about the vetting process?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] We’re going through a process. The process is being worked out right now, and we’re going to be very careful.

[REPORTER:] Will there be restrictions on, for instance, can Chinese nationals get one? Can Iranian nationals get one?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] We’re probably not going to be restricting too much in terms of countries, but maybe in terms of individuals. We want to make sure we have people that love our country and are capable of loving our country.

Measles Outbreak in Texas

[REPORTER:] Is there a problem with measles outbreak in Texas at the moment in which a child is reported to die? Do you have concerns about that? And have you asked Secretary Kennedy to look into that?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Bobby, do you want to speak on that?

[ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.:] We are following the measles epidemic every day. I think there’s one hundred and twenty-four people who have contracted measles. It is mainly, we’re told, the Mennonite community. There are two people who have died, but we’re watching it and there are about twenty people hospitalized mainly for quarantine.

We’re watching it. We put out a post on it yesterday, and we’re going to continue to follow it. It’s incidentally, there have been four measles outbreaks this year. In this country last year, there were sixteen. So it’s not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year.

[REPORTER:] You sound a little under the weather yourself, right?

[ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.:] I have a permanently bad throat.

European Peacekeepers and Russia

[REPORTER:] Mr. President, would you send U.S. Peacekeepers to support the European peacekeepers? Would you do any sort of support for the European peacekeepers?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] We’re willing to support Europe. Yeah.

[REPORTER:] And how would we do that?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] How would with Europe. We have a great relationship with Europe. I mean, you could ask about France. You could talk about any of them. We have a great relationship with Europe.

[REPORTER:] But how will we—how will the United States do that? Would there be—

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] You’re asking me a question. What are we doing in the field? Let’s worry—I hope we have that problem where we can worry about peacekeeping. We gotta get there first, but I hope we have the problem of worrying about peacekeeping. That’ll be the easiest problem, I think, JD, that we’ve ever had.

[JD VANCE:] That’s part of the deal presumably that the Ukrainians were at the time.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Well, peacekeeping is very easy. It’s making the deal that’s very tough. And, again, nobody was speaking to Russia at all.

You know, probably a million and a half soldiers have been killed, close to a million and a half soldiers, not to mention a traumatic—I will tell you, the thing with that horrible war that should have never started would have never started if I were president, and it didn’t start for four years, and it was not even thought about starting.

But the thing with that war is that you’re highly underestimating the number of people that have been killed. Far more people have been killed in war than you talk about. You know, you like to talk about numbers like a million people. Well, they had much more than a million soldiers killed, but you have a lot of cities that have been knocked to the ground and demolition sites, literally demolition sites.

Every single building is knocked to the ground, and a lot of people were killed in those buildings. And you’ll hear a report, two people were minorly injured or just injured a little bit. No. People were killed by the thousands, and there are a lot more people killed in that war than the media wants to talk about because Biden did a horrible, horrible job.

He should have prevented that war. He could have prevented that war. Putin would have never gone in. I’ll tell you one thing. He would have never gone in. That war would never have taken place if I were president.

[REPORTER:] I think what I’m trying to understand, President, is how would the United States—what would you be willing to do to support this European peacekeeping effort? Would there be—

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Again, you’re asking me the same question. How many times you have to answer? You’re talking about after we make peace. Let me make peace first. Once we make peace, I’ll give you all the answers you want. But how many times can you ask the question?

Sanctions on Russia

[REPORTER:] Is loosening of sanctions on Russia a potential option as part of an overall deal?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] No. We have sanctions on Russia. No. I want to see if we make a deal first, but I think we will. I’ve had very good conversations with President Putin. I’ve had very good conversations with President Zelenskyy. And until four weeks ago, nobody had conversations with anybody. It wasn’t even a consideration. Nobody thought you could make peace. I think you can.

[REPORTER:] But if the president gets to keep the land that was claimed by force, if the Russians get to keep the territory that they claim by force, doesn’t that send a dangerous message, let’s say, to China?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] You try and take it away. Right? We’re going to do the best we can. We’re going to do the best we can to make the best deal we can for both sides. But for Ukraine, we’re going to try very hard to make a good deal so that they can get as much back as possible. Want to get as much back as possible.

[REPORTER:] Mr. President, just to bring this full circle back to question—

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] We’ll cut it out after maybe this question. Go ahead.

[REPORTER:] To bring this full circle back to a question—

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] You always like to finish on a good one.

[REPORTER:] Mr.—

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] They want you to negotiate with them instead of with President Putin. That’s a question about the peacekeepers. You have a lot of confidence in us because you assume there’s going to be peace. You know, it’s possible it doesn’t work out. There is possibility. But I hope it does for the sake of humanity because if you look at the pictures that I’ve looked at, you don’t want to look at them. Go ahead.

Federal Workforce Cuts

[REPORTER:] I had a question back on these cuts to the federal workforce. You mentioned you’re interested in doing another round of this email. When would you like to see that? What would be the deadline? And this time, would it be mandatory?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] I think Elon wants to, and I think it’s a good idea because, you know, those people, as I said before, they run the bubble. You got a lot of people that have not responded. So we’re trying to figure out, do they exist? Who are they? And it’s possible that a lot of those people will be actually fired. And if that happened, that’s okay because that’s what we’re trying to do.

This country has gotten bloated and fat and disgusting and incompetently run. I think we had the worst president in the history of our country. He just left office. I think he’s a disgrace what he’s done to our country by allowing millions of people to come into our country like that.

And all of the other things, the inflation, which he caused because of energy and stupid spending, to spend hundreds of millions, trillions, and trillions of dollars on the Green New Deal scam, a total scam. I have the best energy people, the best environmental people in the world around this table, and they can’t even believe he got away with it.

And then in leaving office to send twenty billion dollars here and twenty million dollars there and, ten million and five million, and they couldn’t spend the money fast enough, and let’s get it out before Trump gets in. Let’s just get it out to anybody. This is a disgrace to our nation, and you don’t write the fair thing. But, look. You know the good news? The people see it, and that’s why we won the election by so much.

Thank you very much, everybody.

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